The Marshal's Pursuit

by Gina Welborn

  “But you did,” groused Cady.

  Her shoulders straightened, eyes narrowed as she took her leisure meeting each of their gazes. “Considering the character I demonstrated in turning over the sourdough,” she said, bringing a pretty color to her cheeks, “I see no cause for any of you to decry a minor omission on my part.”

  Frank raised a brow. She was a feisty one.

  Irene sighed. “I’m your lawyer, and my job is to protect you. You should have first told me about the list.”

  “Why?” Miss Vaccarelli’s voice rose. Her eyes filled with tears, which only brightened the amber color. “I have no idea what’s on it. Until I spoke with Giovanni this morning, I had no idea he was mafiosi, which I am still struggling to believe.” Her gaze settled on Frank. “Being sheltered from my family’s apparent mafiosi involvement does not make me obtuse.”

  “We don’t think that,” Irene put in.

  Cady said nothing.

  Nor did Frank.

  Her hands tightened around her beaded clutch. “What could possibly be on this list that would stop someone from wanting to kill my brother? Or me?”

  An idea came to his mind, but it wasn’t his place to say. Instead of answering, the two lawyers approached each other and held a whispered conversation. Miss Vaccarelli breathed deep then dabbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers, a womanly action he’d often seen his grandmother do. On the edge of his tongue were the words to tell her that all would be well. Given time. She needed to trust the court, Irene and him to protect her.

  “Well?” prompted Miss Vaccarelli.

  With a deep furrowed brow, Cady motioned to the table with his binder. “I need you to look at this—”

  “No, Mr. Cady.” Her gaze bore into the special prosecutor’s, unflinching. “I will not look at anything until someone tells me what you all know and I don’t.”

  Cady looked at her askance, in the same manner as Frank had seen him in the courtroom with an uncooperative witness. “Miss Vaccarelli, I have the authority to place you in jail for—”

  “Accomplices,” Frank filled in, cutting off the prosecutor’s threat.

  Irene added, “Gangsters he fed the sourdough to.”

  Cady grabbed Miss Vaccarelli’s arm, and she gasped as he dragged her to the table.

  “There’s no need for that,” Frank ground out. “She’s a lady.”

  “She also knows more than she’s telling.” Cady shoved her onto a seat and slapped the binder down in front of her. He opened to the first page. “Have you seen this man before?” He pointed to a picture.

  Although it was upside down, Frank could tell it was of Albert “Fingers” Bolz. He’d arrested the gangster twice, and twice watched the courts set him free because of lack of evidence. Edwin Daly had been the prosecutor both times.

  Miss Vaccarelli rested her clutch on the table. Her eyes darted from the binder to Irene then to Frank. The square-tipped edge of her chin rose. She didn’t have to speak for him to hear I will not answer as long as he is present.

  Cady drew in a long, angry breath through his nose. “Miss Gibbons,” he warned.

  Irene rushed to sit in the chair next to Miss Vaccarelli. “Malia, please. It is in your best interest to cooperate.”

  Miss Vaccarelli, though, kept eyeing Frank, her gaze defiant, yet the hand holding her clutch had a slight tremble. Out of fear? Or anger?

  He opened his mouth to offer to leave the room then thought better of it. They had to spend the next three weeks in each other’s presence. The girl could start getting used to him—start getting over her misgivings about him—now. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Malia,” Irene gently prodded. “I shouldn’t think you would enjoy jail.”

  Without the asperity of a retort, Miss Vaccarelli looked to the binder. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Cady turned the page. “Either of them?”

  Frank watched her intently. The gangster on the left was Billy O’Flaherty.

  “No.” Her eyebrows furrowed then relaxed. Before he could turn the page, Miss Vaccarelli placed her palm flat in the middle of the binder. “Who are these men?”

  “Known gangsters,” Cady answered.

  “And you think I know them?” Her expression was as incredulous as her tone.

  Cady pointed to the bottom of a page. “Some go by their real names. Others, like your brother, use a fake one because they have legitimate business dealings, and families they want to protect. That your brother was involved in counterfeiting means we now have just cause to investigate him for money laundering. He could go to jail for a long time.”

  She released a weary breath and turned the page. “No.” Another page. “No.” And another. She frowned, leaned forward. “That’s Mr. Heilbert, Patrick Heilbert. He leases space in one of my brother’s buildings for his grocery. He can’t be a gangster. He is the kindest man and most devoted father you will ever meet.”

  “Miss Barn,” he said to the stenographer, “note that Miss Vaccarelli identified Patty Nundel as Patrick Heilbert.”

  “Are you serious?” She stared at him, unblinking. “He’d been attending seminary to become a priest when his father died. He gave that up to take over the family business, to care for his mother and sisters.”

  Cady turned the page. “Keep looking.”

  “This is wrong, all wrong,” Miss Vaccarelli muttered yet resumed her perusal.

  Frank took a seat at the table. As casually as he could, he rested his wounded foot upon another chair. Miss Vaccarelli flipped another page. Minutes passed and Irene grew paler and a bit green as her client identified seven additional gangsters, five of whom the authorities hadn’t had real names for, before reaching the last page in the binder.

  “Malia,” she whispered, touching her client’s hand and stilling her from closing the binder. “Have you ever seen any of these men together?” The look in her eyes said please say no.

  “Once,” Miss Vaccarelli answered.

  Frank felt a bit green himself.

  Cady placed a hand on the table and the other on the back of her chair, leaning down. “When was that?”

  “Three days ago,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Giovanni had been ill the night before, from eating bad shellfish, so I cut short a meeting with the volunteer coordinator at the Museum of Art. Four of them, and another man I didn’t recognize, were in the living room discussing how to help a needy business associate. Giovanni offered to take care of Mr. Miller, which frustrated me. I walked in and said he had no business caring for another person in his condition and that I would take care of Mr. Miller if he would give me the address. Giovanni was furious with me. The men laughed then each gave my brother their support and—”

  Her eyes widened. Her hand covered her mouth, her head shaking.

  “Oh my,” she whispered.

  An oh my, in Frank’s opinion, didn’t describe how deep the mire she was in.

  The stenographer looked up from where she sat in the corner. Her pencil fell from her hand. Her jaw sagged. Irene didn’t look as if she was even breathing. The man known for his gifted oratory, Special Prosecutor Cady, stood straight, a hand on his forehead.

  No one had to say anything for Frank to know they were all thinking the same as he.

  Malia Vaccarelli had unwittingly walked into a mafiosi meeting and heard her brother vow to kill James “Mad Dog” Miller. She could also identify four other gangsters who knew of the hit and agreed to it—a hit to take out the very man who intended to kill Special Prosecutor Van Wyck Cady. The fifth man could have been Maranzano, who, like Van Kelly, they didn’t have a photograph of. If she wanted to stay alive, Malia DeWitt Vaccarelli needed more than what was probably a list of men her brother was funneling counterfeit bills to.

  Frank rested his foot on t
he floor with more force than he intended, causing the splint to thump against the shoe, sending a jolt of pain shooting up his leg. This day grew exponentially worse for both of them.

  He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Miss Vaccarelli.” He waited until her expressive brown eyes met his blue ones. “You need my protection, whether you want it or not.”

  Chapter 5

  [In] fashionable society an “escort” is unheard of, and in decent society a lady doesn’t go traveling around the country with a gentleman unless she is outside the pale of society.

  —Emily Price Post, Etiquette

  3:08 p.m.

  Twenty-seven minutes. That’s how long she’d been waiting. Not that anyone seemed to mind but her.

  Malia paced the library’s carpeted floor, circling the mahogany center table in a room that still smelled like the lemon-and-garlic remains of the lunch Irene had ordered from Delmonico’s. She listened to the wall clock; waited for her lawyer, the marshal, and Special Prosecutor Cady to return; and tried to stifle her growing panic. Every door was locked. As were the windows. She’d tried them all. Someone—everyone—didn’t want her to flee.

  She looked past the shelves of law books to the row of windows, the sky blue and clear and sunny. Because they were on the seventh floor, the tips of several buildings were visible nearby and in the distance. When Giovanni looked through the window in the police department, did he see what she saw? She was no freer than he was.

  The clock continued to tick.

  She continued to pace and pray, but mostly pace.

  Twenty-nine minutes.

  Thirty.

  Thirty-one.

  Thirty—

  The door opened. “I’m so sorry it took so long,” Irene said, rushing inside, her breathing harried. Miss Barn, the shy stenographer, followed close behind.

  Malia stopped pacing. “You said you would be gone only a few minutes.”

  Miss Barn closed the library door.

  “I know, I know.” Irene looked as flustered as she sounded. “But Cady didn’t agree with Frank on what to do with you. Once we came to an agreement, there were arrangements to be made, phone calls.” She took the tan leather trench coat and straw hat from Miss Barn then walked to Malia. “Frank and Cady walked around the building’s perimeter and didn’t see anyone suspicious, but we can’t take any risks. You need to put these on.”

  “I have a hat.” Malia reached for her white feathered one in the middle of the table, but Irene grabbed it first.

  “Sorry, you can’t keep it. It fits the description of what you were wearing at the art exhibit.” She gave it to Miss Barn, who kept her gaze on the ground. “Hat for a hat.”

  Miss Barn whispered thanks.

  “If my dress would have fit you,” Irene went on, “I’d have happily exchanged because black is far less conspicuous than white. Seeing that the good Lord blessed you with more of...well, everything than He did me, I had to find someone more suitably matched. Miss Barn became the lucky volunteer.” She handed Malia the coat. “Frank said a coat would do.”

  Malia’s lips came together to ask Miss Barn if she felt lucky or volunteerish (for she looked neither), but before she could utter the first syllable, Irene demanded she put on the coat.

  “Hurry, Malia,” she added as she opened Malia’s pochette.

  Malia drew the trench coat on over her dress. Considering the minimalism of Miss Barn’s white blouse and gray skirt and her lack of jewels, the coat was likely the most expensive item the stenographer owned. Malia didn’t want to calculate how many months of putting money aside that the girl had to do. Inside her closet in her Waldorf-Astoria apartment were at least a dozen coats, capes and stoles, including a supple lambskin coat from Italy that Giovanni had bought her the same day he bought his petromobile, and a pair of slink gloves that she’d never been able to move past her revulsion to wear.

  The way Miss Barn held Malia’s hat—

  The poor dear clung to the brim in desperation not to give it up, yet her brow furrowed as if she were trying to convince herself that this was a joke and any minute Irene would laugh and, like a bad Santa, take back the hat.

  Irene, being Irene, did nothing of the sort. She withdrew the apartment key. “I’ll hold this for you until you return, and I will make arrangements with Pieter Joossens like I promised.” She handed Malia the clutch, which Malia took and held to her chest.

  Malia shifted her weight uncomfortably. “What am I supposed to do for three weeks with only one set of clothing?”

  “Frank has that taken care of.”

  “What do I do if I need to contact you?”

  “Frank will help you.”

  “But what if he is my problem?”

  Irene clearly saw Malia’s distress, and didn’t look the least bit concerned. “Frank is the best there is. I’d be in love with him myself if it weren’t for— Well, that’s neither here nor there.”

  Malia didn’t say a word. There was no point. Once Irene set her mind upon something, nothing—neither hell, nor high water, nor a handsome man—could change it. Malia admired that about her. Until now. Sometimes she suspected Giovanni’s courtship of Irene in the six months following the funeral was so Malia and Irene could become friends. Malia and Irene had attended the opera together more than Giovanni and Irene had.

  Irene gripped the sides of Malia’s arms. “As your lawyer, I advise you to trust Frank.”

  Malia felt her upper lip curl.

  “As your friend...” Irene leaned forward. Placing her cheek against Malia’s, she whispered, “Look away when he smiles. Trust me.” Then she was off like a rabbit to the door. “Hurry. Frank likes to stay on schedule.”

  Frank. Frank. Frank, Frank, Frank. Frank.

  She hadn’t even begun her three weeks with him and she was sick of his name.

  Malia pinned the straw hat atop her head. She collected her gloves from the table and walked to Irene, Miss Barn silently following.

  Irene opened the door a smidgeon, peeked and then opened it the rest of the way.

  “Wait.” Malia turned around, and Miss Barn stopped in front of her. “Thank you.” She laid her gloves across her pochette and offered them to Miss Barn, whose pale blue eyes immediately widened.

  “Oh, I cannot accept—”

  “Please,” Malia cut in, “allow me. Gloves and clutch for a coat? It seems only fair. We can always trade back.”

  Miss Barn hesitated. With her translucent skin, flaxen hair and quiet demeanor, she had blended into the room, unnoticed as the pale brows on her face.

  Then she looked up and smiled.

  Malia did too.

  Grand Central Depot

  Forty-Second Street and Fourth Avenue

  3:42 p.m.

  Nearly nine hours after she first saw him in the Park Avenue Hotel courtyard, he led her into a wall of smoke.

  Eyes burning, Malia blinked as she blindly walked next to the marshal. If he weren’t clenching her hand in his—and it was quite embarrassing that he was—she would have lost him in the darkness. An engineer led them through the workers’ passage in the shadowy and noisy Park Avenue tunnel, filled with smoke from the hundreds of steam locomotives arriving daily. A rate of one every forty-five seconds, or so the Times recently reported. She’d never concerned herself with trains or the political views of boosting public safety by removing the locomotives from Manhattan’s surface and putting them underground. As if digging for the subway wasn’t enough. Street construction was a way of life in the city.

  The last time she had been at Grand Central was when the train brought her home following her graduation from Vassar. Other than an occasional visit to the outer boroughs, she’d simply had no need—or inclination—to leave the island since. She still had no inclination.

  Need, tho
ugh...well, that was debatable.

  Not that the marshal listened to her any more then Irene or Mr. Cady had. They’d seized control of her life and decisions as if she were a child, sending her into the unknown, with no one but a questionable stranger as her escort. For all she knew, he could be taking her to Maranzano, the gangster who’d put the hit out on her brother.

  Her chest tightened, and breath fled from her lungs. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t leave Giovanni. They had only each other. She had to get out of the tunnel, get away from the marshal. Home, she had to get home. She’d be safe there in the Waldorf.

  “Here’s your train,” the engineer called out.

  No time. She had to run.

  The marshal drew her close, his palm warm against hers. Malia pulled to no avail. His blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly in annoyance upon guessing her intention. Had she a wild look in her eyes? Ashen complexion? Or had her frantic pulse given her away? Yet he uttered no condemnation or chastisement as, like a doting suitor, he gallantly helped her onto the platform and over the threshold of the private coach.

  “My wife,” the engineer was saying, “wanted to elope.”

  “Why didn’t you?” the marshal asked.

  Malia left him to continue the charade he’d created to explain their need to sneak onto the train instead of going through the depot’s main entrance, where people could be looking for them. Amazing what a few crisp hundred-dollar bills would get a man. She moved past a sofa and a set of chairs, turning on the electric lamps. She paused at the dining table in the center of the coach.

  They were to wait thirty minutes before the train had to move to the platform for passengers to begin filling the Shore Line Express. The plan was cleverly laid, or so Irene had stated. They would go to Boston, slip immediately onto the night express back to New York, and then take a train to somewhere on Long Island where they were to hide out for the next three weeks. He’d even left the name of another marshal to contact in case of an emergency. Irene would provide a cover for Malia’s disappearance: she went to visit her aunt and cousins in England. All Malia had to do was what the marshal had asked before they sneaked out the back entrance of the special prosecutor’s office building—trust him to keep her safe.